


A Good Name For A King

by Heofaucandlir



Series: Aragorn's Lost Years: T.A. 2957-3017 [2]
Category: The Lord of the Rings (Movies), The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Aragorn is a Pisces, Aragorn's name, Arathorn II being a good dad, BAMF!Ivorwen, But it will be ok, Canon Compliant, Dúnedain - Freeform, Elf-stone, Ettenmoors, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Ivorwen is a legend, Light Angst, Origin Story, Pre-Canon, Prophecy, Rangers, TA 2931, everybody's tired
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:20:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27862937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heofaucandlir/pseuds/Heofaucandlir
Summary: It was the tail end of a dark and deadly night some twenty leagues North of The Last Bridge in the wilds of Rhudaur. Ivorwen peered down at her newborn grandson, and the grace of Westernesse was in her face as she spoke.“He shall be a healer of many things, and in many ways. He’ll wear a green stone upon his breast.’ her eyes sparkled. “Little Aragorn, I do believe you’ll be a king.”Arathorn felt his heart swell with hope,'Aragorn is a good name for a king."
Relationships: Arathorn II/Gilraen, Ivorwen/Dirhael (implied)
Series: Aragorn's Lost Years: T.A. 2957-3017 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1794691
Kudos: 6





	A Good Name For A King

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sweet little fic I wrote about Aragorn's birth. I've been sitting on it for a while, but I'm ready to send it out (I'm just reassuring myself). 
> 
> Enjoy!

It is the tail end of a dark and deadly night some twenty leagues North of The Last Bridge in the wilds of Rhudaur. A single campfire flares amidst the trees in the most secret corner of the forest, jumping now and then as though its own flames startl it. A small hide tent seems to cower and tremble in the firelight. Hidden in the trees, twenty weary Rangers pray silently in the interminable hour before dawn. They prayed that the spirits of the kings of old, Lords of Westernesse, walk amongst them and empty their limbs of hurt and sorrow, replacing them with hope and grace. The dead Chieftains of Old drift among their men, many half-asleep where they’d stand, touch them with spectral fingers and count their lives against the fallen. Prayers answered, the Rangers find themselves filled with resolve and know their ancestors watched over them before the coming of the day. They make fast their wavering defenses and stand, if not tall, then at least straighter than before. 

A young boy is boy minding a pot of water set to boil. A hatchet cut to size for him rests within easy reach. Around the small tent, a tall, clean shaven man in a long, travel stained cloak is pacing restlessly on the other side of the fire. Hidden in the shadows of the trees, with their backs to the fire and its blinding light, are twenty others, clad like the tall man. The cloaks hide their shapes in the pre-dawn fog, but they all grip bared swords, or bowstrings laid with arrows. 

Stifled cries of pain ring out from the tent, shrill and desperate, dissipating into the overhanging boughs. The tall man looks up and bites his lips, but does not stop pacing. He can do nothing, it’s all up to Gilraen now. The boy jumps up and lifts a sack of boiled rags out of the fire. He turns, holding the dripping sack away from his body, and speaks softly to the door of the tent. A woman’s bloody hand immediately lifts the flap and takes the clothes, careful not to let them touch the ground. 

This child has been a long time in coming, as though it were reluctant to leave the sanctuary of the womb for an embattled and dangerous world. In the past few days of desperate fighting Gilraen has taken every opportunity to sit anxiously and wait for some movement in her swollen stomach. It’s been two days since she felt anything. Ivorwen, her mother, has told them that the baby is simply saving their strength. Arathorn tries to think about anything else. Still, all he can see is Gilraen’s lifeless body, their baby stillborn into a silent camp. 

Something barks and hoots in the night and the men jump. Arathorn draws his sword. Bows swing back and forth as if probing. The young boy at the pot grabs his hatchet, steadying it with both hands. Forty-four eyes scan the night to no avail. This time, they do not relax. It’s been a long winter, and they are solemn. There are not as many as there once were. 

Another pleading cry rises from the tent, followed by another, and another, before silence finally settles. Only a moment later, the unmistakable wail of a newborn baby turns every head towards the tent at the center of the clearing. Arathorn sags in relief, grinning like an idiot as a few of the Rangers hail him. Their Captain, Aegnor, makes his way out of the shadows to the central fire. Arathorn, giddy tears in his eyes, holds out his arms and they embrace. The night seems lighter than it did a moment ago as the watchers thoughts turn towards dawn, and rest.   
Ivorwen, her wavy grey hair shoved hastily back into a bun, steps out of the tent, wiping her bloody hands on her apron. She nods to the Captain and smiles at the expectant Arathorn. Her face is deeply creased, like a mountainside. The baby’s cries die down inside the tent. Gilraen is quick to teach her baby the world isn’t safe to cry in. 

“My lord Arathorn, you have a healthy son.” 

Arathorn doesn’t seem to understand for a moment. He turns away from his mother-in-law, both hands knotted in his hair. His chest is moving up and down but he seems to have forgotten how to really breathe. After a moment he remembers and takes a shuddering breath, gripping the Captain’s arms tightly with both hands, possibly to keep himself upright.

“A son, Aegnor. I have a son. I have a son!” 

Aegnor nods solemnly, though he too is smiling. “Congratulations, my lord. The line of Isildur is secure.”

Ivorwen looks troubled at this but says nothing. She beckons Arathorn inside the tent and shuts the “door” fast against the gust of damp, pine-scented air he brings in with him. Out of the firelight, there’s just a potbellied lantern to see by. The irregular sloped ceiling is barely high enough for a tall woman like Ivorwen to stand erect and Arathorn crouches awkwardly to avoid brushing his shoulders against the tent poles. 

Gilraen is lying on a bed of pine boughs covered with a thick woolen rug. She’s wrapped in shawls and furs, covered so completely that Arathorn doesn’t spot the little one until it makes a sound: a soft, squeaky whimper. He’s pressed so tightly to his mother they seem like one being, although for the first time in nine months, they’re actually two. Arathorn can’t make a sound as he creeps closer, looking to Gilraen for a sign that this isn’t just a dream, that their child is here at last. Gilraen looks up at him, beaming. She looks exhausted, nearly spent, but defiantly, wonderfully alive. Her mother is standing beside her and, with Gilraen's permission, lifts the little boy out of his mother’s arms and bundles him up in a soft rabbit skin blanket Arathorn and Aegnor made months ago for this very purpose. Perhaps they were overzealous because the blanket can hold two or three babies and trails from Ivorwen’s arms as she shuffles over to the new father. The babe’s skin glows red in the firelight, and his puffy eyes are screwed shut. His little arms pinwheel at the air, seeking purchase on something soft and milk-filled. Arathorn holds out his hands and Ivorwen slowly deposits the little one into his arms.  
“He looks just like you.” She says, making sure Arathorn is supporting the limp little head.She needn’t have bothered, he knows exactly what he’s doing. The young Chieftain draws his baby close to his chest with infinite care and wonder, staring into his tiny face. Gilraen pulls herself into a seated position and Arathorn sinks slowly down beside her, mindlessly pushing his scabbard off to one side with his foot.

“He’s so perfect.” Arathorn murmurs. “Hey hey little one… well met!” His son sticks out his tongue and wriggles his entire body, all nineteen inches of him. Arathorn’s heart does a flip,  
“Yes! Hello! Well met! Oh hey now, hello!’ he babbles, ‘hello, hello!”   
Gilraen smooths the babe’s thin waft of hair with one finger and croons wordlessly to her child. It’s dark, just like the tangled black locks falling over Arathorn’s forehead. 

“He’s everything.” She replies. “Absolutely everything.” 

The baby starts to whimper, then cry and Arathorn passes him back to Gilraen, who folds him back into their collective cocoon. Arathorn puts his arms around Gilraen and leans his head softly against hers. 

“He’s strong,’ she adds, ‘he knew exactly when he was ready. He’s going to be fine, I know it. What shall we call him, my love?” She asks, brushing her own sweaty hair behind her ears. She can’t stop touching their son, his little fingers, his nose, his puckered pink lips and downturned eyes.

Arathorn is absorbed in watching his newborn child and doesn’t respond. Ivorwen, who is mixing wine and water for Gilraen, pipes up. 

“Name him Aragorn, for his valor in being born in the most inconvenient season of the year.” 

Her tone is joking, but her face is grave. She draws her daughter back against the wall of blanket-covered saddlebags assembled for her comfort and offers her the wineskin, which Gilraen gladly accepts. Arathorn snuggles back against the mound as well, and lowers their son onto both their laps. Gilraen draws the babe up to her breast. Ivorwen smiles as the baby latches on and begins to suck, cautiously at first, then more vigorously.

“He certainly learns fast, and thank goodness! If he was as clod-headed as his father, we’d still be here in a fortnight.”

Aragorn winces, pretending to be stung by her comment. Ivorwen loves her daughter fiercely, and he knows that if she’d died in giving birth to a child of his, Ivorwen would never have forgiven him. Gilraen pays no mind, totally absorbed in the little one. Arathorn strokes her brow, then kisses her head, tasting sweat and smelling the coppery tang of blood, pine sap, and some other, heavier scent he’s never smelled on battlefield’s of his own. 

“And if he’s as brave as his mother?” He says through his wife’s fair hair. “What then?”   
The lines of Ivorwen’s face deepened in concentration.

“Then the world may be greatly changed, and all the peoples of Middle Earth lifted out of fear with his aid.” She bends to peer at her newborn grandson, and the grace of Westernesse is in her face as she speaks.

“He shall be a healer of many things, and in many ways. He’ll wear a green stone upon his breast.’ her eyes sparkled. “Little Aragorn, I do believe you’ll be a king.” 

Gilraen chucked the little one gently under the chin. “Not too soon though, you’ll stay with me for a good while before anything like that. I think it’s a good name. What do you think,?”  
Arathorn bent his head upon Gilraen’s shoulder so that his head was almost on a level with his son.

“Yes, it is.’ He whispers, “And may the Valar grant me many years to teach you, little one, and show you what wonders remain in this world.” 

He grins, a broad, toothy smile Gilraen hasn’t seen since they started running, always fighting for the time to bring baby Aragorn safely into the world. It has been a hard pregnancy for them all. Aragorn is truly the son of the Dunedain, of the hundred arms that defended him while he turned in her womb. In the last few hours of labor, she had been quite positive she would die. She was a little afraid to fall asleep for, as desperately as she wanted to, she feared she would awake to a world of ruin, or not at all. She felt her eyes slipping closed. If she was going to die, it would be at Arathorn’s side, with their baby safe in her arms. 

Ivorwen, with her uncanny perception, lifts the wineskin to her daughter's lips once more. 

“Not quite yet, my girl. There’s still the afterbirth to go.”

Gilraen peeps up at Arathorn, one eye open. At her breast, little Aragorn feeds  
peacefully. “Stay with me?” 

Arathorn bows his head, “Of course. Still, I must speak with Aegnor briefly. Dirhael will want to see you too.”

He peels himself away from her side and unfastens his cloak and belt. Mindful of their ever-present danger, he draws his sword and lays it at the side of the makeshift bed within easy reach. Then he slips past Ivorwen and the rest of the boiled clothes, back out into the night where Aegnor is waiting, eyes ceaselessly scanning the shadows. 

“My lady has requested my presence for the rest of the night. Let me know if the wind so much as blows crosswise. We’ll rest here for as long as we can. We’ll reassess at daybreak. Perhaps we’ll send Haiya and Cullas to the East, if Gilraen and the baby are strong enough to travel.”

Aegnor nods slightly. “How is she?”

“I’m scared to hope, but Ivorwen doesn't seem concerned. Gilraen will be fine.” 

“And the child?”

Arathorn looks West into the fading gloom, and towards the distant memory of Numenor, now only a trilling in the Heir’s blood that rose to a crescendo when the West Wind was calling from the shores.

“His name is Aragorn. He’s everything we ever hoped for.”

Aegnor nods, mulling it over.

“It’s a good name for a Chieftain.”

Arathorn felt the predawn chill stealing under his tunic and went to go back inside the tent. As he did so, he felt another chill that had nothing to do with the cold. It seemed to him that darkness stole over his eyes for a moment, followed by a great surge of light that blinded him. He felt his heart swell with hope and when he opened his eyes, the world was charged. He turns back to Aegnor and says,

“It’s a good name for a king.”

**Author's Note:**

> I love constructive criticism! Leave a comment!


End file.
